Sun Yat-sen (Sun Zhongshan) (1866-1925) led the revolution to overthrow the last feudal Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and became the Provisional President of the new Chinese Republic proclaimed in 1911. He is respected as "Father of the Nation" and is also credited with the modernisation of Chinese men's dress.

It is said that he instructed Huang Longsheng, a Western-style tailor from Zhejiang Province, to design a suit based on one commonly worn by Chinese men in Japan and south-east Asia. The early form of Sun Yat-sen suit (Qilingwenzhuang) had a closed stand collar and centre-front buttons. The design of the Sun Yat-sen suit changed significantly over the course of some 50 years.

A major and lasting change to the design of the Sun Yat-sen suit (Zhongshan-zhuang) was the incorporation of elements of German military dress including a turndown collar and four symmetrically placed pockets. Over time small stylistic changes were made to the design. It is the later style of Sun Yat-sen suit which was further modified and adopted as China's national dress by Mao Zedong after 1949. It is thus also known to the westerners as "Mao Suit" or "Mao Tunic".